Dutch/Maltese conductor Lawrence Renes led the fine musicians of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in a concert that began as heroic emergence from a mythical cave to a transformative utterance in the final years of an artist’s creative life and closing with a performance that serenely lifted the audience of Hamer Hall towards the divine. This journey from the depths of mythical ambiguity to peaceful transcendence demonstrated the focussed professionalism of the M.S.O and a conductor whose stage manner was one of gestural clarity and ease. The orchestra’s articulate execution of exuberant flourishes tamed by an ennobled brass section was a highlight in the performance of works that built expansive sound worlds from three distinct creative voices united in their flair for sublime musical expression.
Soviet-born Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin’s Mythic (2004) for orchestra is inspired by heroic mythology and composed in the year of the 2004 Olympics held in Athens. The work could be imagined as the hero’s journey towards the divine – a mythical figure emerging from a shadowy ether who gradually ascends to heaven bound through a kaleidoscope of orchestral colour. The orchestral strings introduced the work with a brooding passacaglia that set the scene in a primordial underworld. The warmly resonant yet unsettled kneading of the passacaglia’s hymn-like chord progression displays Kats-Chernin’s ability to reimagine ancient techniques in motivic repetition in a modern context framed by a kind of minimalist-inspired variation form. Kat’s-Chernin’s flair for the uncanny, the quirky and the colourful was on full display in this richly orchestrated piece. The M.S.O. string section set the gold standard for some fine ensemble work that navigated Kats-Chernin’s effective use of pitch slides assigned to the string section that surged and receded in constant flow. This sinuous progression gave way to a middle section in double time. The use of accented muted trombones gave the pulsing ostinato of this section an added spice.
The enigmatic Symphony no. 7 (1924) by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius is the summation of the composer’s quest for organic transformation of a very Nordic kind. Though his music was celebrated in his day across the western world as the romantic essence of Finnish identity, the shifting ideological tides toward modernism and the artistic call to address “historical necessity”, saw this rather apolitical artist retreat into a thirty-year retirement six years after the symphony’s premiere. Critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno dismissed his music as regressive and lacking what he saw as an artistic commitment to engage artistically with modern issues. Criticisms of Sibelius even went so far as to label his music “dangerous”, drawing a straight line between Sibelius’ interest in nature and myth and Nazi Germany’s appropriation of world mythologies and folklore within their corrupted nature ideology of “blood and soil”. Postwar scholarship has since recontextualised Sibelius’ artistic legacy. This positive reassessment now aligns with popularity he also enjoyed during his lifetime despite the objections of the modernists, though without the often-hyperbolic comparisons to composers who wrote very differently to him. His Symphony No. 7, much like Kats-Chernin’s Mythic, is a kind of heroic journey in the Nordic way that demonstrates Sibelius’ compositional innovations in his fluidic treatment of musical structure with only a few basic motifs. Of six contrasting sections that dalliance between the majestic, the playful and the transcendent, there were two notable aspects of this one-movement performance from the orchestra. The first was the masterful focus of the string section of the M.S.O. under Guest Concertmaster, Natalie Chee. The role of the strings in this work is one of constant evolving that never lets up for the duration of the symphony. The ensemble string playing really demonstrated a committed focus to the job at hand, particularly in the energy of the capricious passage work in the middle sections. While the strings dominated the work, it was the distinctive trombone theme – one of the most ennobled themes for solo trombone ever constructed in the symphonic repertoire – that enthralled. The trombones of the M.S.O. must be congratulated on some fine playing – a highlight of the evening.
From the first solemn statement to the final weightless moments towards paradise, Faure’s Requiem in d minor (1890) stands as one of the most unique mediations on death ever set to music. The raison d’être for most requiems up until Faure’s work is the tormenting “Dies Irae” where the religious struggle of salvation of eternal damnation drives the musical drama. Faure’s Requiem de-emphasises religious struggle, favouring a more consoling and humanising view of passing in this “lullaby of death” as he called it. Marked by lyrical flowing melodies, this performance featured the voices of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus prepared by Warren Trevelyan-Jones. The aggregate choral sound was one of restrained tonal integrity where parts were beautifully balanced with a particular noteworthy execution of near perfect intonation despite the challenges of long sustained phrases. The choir’s uniform delivery of the Latin text was never weighted or laboured. Some performances of this work opt for a fuller tone in the softer sustained sections, however, the overall effect of a more refined and restrained sound in this performance enhanced the dramatic contrasts when they appeared to great effect. The resulting balance between orchestra and choir demonstrates that the musicians of the M.S.O understand the need to show sensitivity and responsiveness when performing with massed voices. While the overall sound was laudable, the tempo occasionally felt pushed in the “Offertoire”. This resulted in a kind of nonchalant effect where a more restrained tempo could have engendered this movement with a timeless feel for which combined counterpoint and harmonic treatment seemed to be searching. The tonal beauty of Australian-born soprano Siobhan Stagg in the “Pie Jesu” was indeed a treat. Welsh baritone Roderick Williams sang with a suitably warm tone that was focused and never pushed and was thus befitting for such soothing music.
As hoped, the musicians of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra showed how astutely an orchestra must attend to the varied challenges in programming where nuance, refinement and ensemble connection as a cohesive unit is the goal for music that doesn’t need to be overt to express the ineffable.
Photo supplied.
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Stephen Marino reviewed “Faure’s Requiem”, presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall on August 29, 2024.
